A large percentage of the world population cannot afford to own a computer and/or various software allowing an efficient use of the computer. There is a need to provide affordable access to computing to the populations of the developing countries. This is also true in light of the traditional structure of the software industry, where software licenses are generally sold on a perpetual license basis. As a result of not having enough resources to purchase perpetual licenses for the various software, people are also prohibited from using such software even on a short term basis for training purposes, etc. Moreover, even in the developed countries, when a computer user needs to use a particular software for a limited amount of time, the user is discouraged by the necessity to purchase a perpetual license for that particular software.
This is particularly true in the case of operating system for the computer. Using the computing power of technologically advanced computers and the resources available through the Internet, it is necessary that a sophisticated operating system is used to operate the computer and its communication with the Internet and other resources. However, as is the case with software, operating systems are also generally sold with perpetual licenses, and the cost of such perpetual licenses are usually quite prohibitive compared to the purchasing power of people in various third world countries.
Various business models have been tried to provide an alternative solution for allowing use of software without requiring the purchase of a perpetual license. For example, various companies provide software based on application service provider (ASP) model, where software that is resident on a server on a network such as the Internet can be accessed by a user by logging into that server. However, this method requires that the user be continuously connected to the server via the Internet. This is not a viable solution in various developing countries, where access to the Internet is unreliable and expensive. Alternatively, software providers often allow users to download software for a fixed amount of time, generally for a trial purpose, after which the user has to purchase a perpetual license for the software. However, the time period for using such trial software is usually fixed and the user does not have a choice to purchase a time period of his or her own choosing, or to renew the user of the trial software for additional fixed amount of time. As can be readily appreciated, there is a need to provide software services to users in a manner such that a user can purchase the services in a variety of different manners.